Although M. F. K. Fisher's contribution to the literature of gastronomy is her chief claim to fame, to characterize her solely as a food scholar does not do justice to the full measure of her literary undertaking. In truth, Fisher also may be considered a memoirist and a travel writer, for like many travel writers, she imbues her works with a sense of place made palpable through a combination of historical fact, cogent observation, and personal anecdote. Perforce what distinguishes Fisher from other travel writers, whether male or female, is that her specialized knowledge of culinary arts determines her narrative role.
A travel writer's choice of a narrative figure is not without significance. Male travel writers, for instance, are apt to present themselves as bold, adventuring heroes. Fisher's narrative role, on the other hand, implicitly invokes an image of femininity since cooking generally is deemed a domestic activity. My paper will argue that because Fisher's narrative role safely positions her within a feminine discourse of domesticity, she is somewhat more at liberty to carry out her project of educating and enlarging the senses of her reading audience without being faulted for indelicacy.
Fisher's specialized knowledge of cookery provides her with a unique angle of vision, one that is especially attuned to the array of sensory delights yielded to the traveler. Indeed, Fisher rather boldly asserts herself as a culinary adventuress, but at the same time, there is ample textual evidence to suggest that she feels vulnerable to the charge of gender impropriety. My paper will explore the ways in which Fisher's texts seems to acquiesce to and resist the pressure on women's travel writing to embrace discourses of femininity.
More specially, my paper will draw upon the following primary texts: The Art of Eating, Long Ago In France, Two Towns in Provence, and Fisher's masterful translation from the French of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Saverin's The Physiology of Taste, or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy. Representing the core of Fisher's work, The Art of Eating (1954) is a collection of five previously published volumes ostensibly about good eating. In Long Ago in France, Fisher recollects her three-year sojourn in Dijon, the provincial capital of Burgundy and the gastronomical center of France. When the twenty-one-year-old Fisher arrived in Dijon in 1929, she was new to Europe, much less to France, and a culinary novice. Dijon "launched" her, as Henry James might say. Two Towns in Provence contains portraits of Aix-en-Provence and Marseille.
The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and
employer.
© Regents of the University of Minnesota, 1997.